The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users. One area in which there is a demand to increase the ease of information transfer and convenience to users relates to simplifying human to machine interfaces for HCI (human-computer interaction). With recent developments in the area of the computing devices and hand-held or mobile devices improving the capabilities of such devices, next generation HCI is on the minds of many. Furthermore, given that the devices will tend to increase in their capacity to create content, store content and/or receive content relatively quickly upon request, and given also that mobile electronic devices such as mobile phones often face limitations in display size, text input speed, and physical embodiments of user interfaces (UI), challenges are often created in the context of HCI.
Furthermore, improvements in HCI may also enhance user enjoyment and open possibilities for user interface with computing devices in environments that may otherwise have presented changes for effective HCI. One such improvement relates to gesture recognition. Compared with other interactive mechanisms currently employed in HCI such as, for example, keypad and mouse, some may consider gesture recognition to improve the naturalness and facility of communication. As such, certain applications have been developed to enable gesture recognition for use as a command controller in digital home appliances, for use in file/web navigation or for use as a substitute for the commonly used remote controller. However, current mechanisms for gesture analysis are often slow or cumbersome to employ. Moreover, many gesture analysis mechanisms that are currently in place may suffer from difficulties in detecting or tracking gestures in unconstrained environments. For example, embodiments with changing or certain lighting configurations and environments with difficult to distinguish backgrounds may present challenges in gesture tracking. Thus, given the general utility of next generation HCI, improvements in gesture analysis may be desirable.